Olbermann suspended after donations

On Oct. 7, Olbermann had House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) on his show to discuss the donations. At one point, he asked Clyburn: “Is there a legislative response to the idea that there is a national cable-news outlet that goes beyond having a point of view and actually starts to shill for partisan causes and actually starts to donate to partisan groups of one party?”

Olbermann’s contributions came amid a brutal campaign season for Democrats.

Giffords had appeared on Olbermann’s program in May, as did Conway. During his more recent broadcasts, Olbermann also made frequent references to the “Aqua Buddha” controversy involving Conway’s Republican Senate rival, Rand Paul, who handily won election Tuesday.

Grijalva, a prominent liberal who was just declared a winner in his race Thursday night, was in a tight contest against tea-party-backed candidate Ruth McClung when he appeared on "Countdown" — one of several appearances he made on the show.

Grijalva had seemed to be in a safe race until the month before the election, when he became targeted by outside groups. In mid-October, national Democratic interests began putting money into his district to compete with fundraising for McClung from outside conservative groups.

On Oct. 28, Grijalva went on Olbermann’s show and fielded questions about a story linking profit motives of private prisons to Arizona's new immigration crackdown. It was the sixth time Grijalva had appeared on "Countdown" in a little more than the past six months.

Grijalva not only opposed the immigration law — known as S.B. 1070 — but inadvertently put himself in electoral jeopardy by calling for an economic boycott of his own home state in response, a move that didn't go over so well with cash-strapped Arizonans.

"It's almost extraordinary to believe that once we got past the original phony reason for it, which was security at the border, when obviously it didn't pertain to that whatsoever, that the real reason behind that was well, this is to intimidate people of Hispanic descent. Well, it turns out there's an even more base, cynical reason behind it. Am I wrong about this?" Olbermann asked. "Is there anything you can tell us about the relationship between these private prisons and the lawmakers who supported this monstrosity of a bill?”

Grijalva responded: "It is a wonderful I-told-you-so moment."

Keach Hagey contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Josh Segall was running for Congress in Rhode Island. He was running in Alabama.

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CORRECTION: Corrected by: Gabe Beltrone @ 11/07/2010 02:18 PM
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Josh Segall was running for Congress in Rhode Island. He was running in Alabama.